90’s pop powerhouses hit the stage at Sonia

The three frontwomen who are playing at Sonia tonight have a limited things in common including all being friends They were all on major labels during the s They all had next-big-thing status at least once And they ve all proven to be first-class singer writers of hard-edged pop songs Headlining the gig is ex-Fuzzy Shepherdess Monsieurs member Hilken Mancini promoting her first official solo-band album Mary Lou Lord who went from busking the subways to indie acclaim is coming out of semi-retirement to open the show And if the Cujo doesn t sound familiar the name of co-leader Jen Trynin a local favorite who made two Warners albums in and seemingly will Hilken Mancini s inevitably had a split musical personality She can write gorgeous pop hooks but also likes to turn it up and rock out Both sides are in evidence on the album though the pop side is a bit more pronounced the opening Set My Sights is one of the catchier local songs you ll hear this year And it was written largely by accident My records inevitably come out sounding sweeter than I do live she mentioned Set My Sights was the name of a Fuzzy song that we never disclosed recorded specific time ago at J Mascis house We couldn t access the tapes so I was trying to pull that song out of my brain And when we got the tapes back of syllabus it sounded totally different Making a solo album with her band which includes Fuzzy bassist Winston Braman Tsunami drummer Luther Grey and ex-Heavy Stud guitarist Melissa Gibbs wasn t intentional either she was intending to continue an ongoing collaboration with Chris Colbourn who got too busy with his regular band Buffalo Tom he still appears on a inadequate songs Then the pandemic happened I didn t like it that people were sick and dying but it meant I could ultimately stop doing too much and get selected writing done Mancini has dependably been a mover and shaker she cofounded two productive enterprises Girls Rock Camp and Punk Rock Aerobics and also runs the South Street vintage store in Jamaica Plain What fuels me is allegedly anxiety and what soothes me is work As I ve gotten older I ve come to realize that s how I am I perpetually need to be doing something Even in Fuzzy I was in a band with my best friend my boyfriend and the Lemonheads drummer and I was not having a good time That s over now but I definitely have a crazy work ethic In Mancini s view a good club gig is more satisfying than playing to thousands of people and she should know having been invited with the Monsieurs to open for the Foo Fighters at Fenway Park in I was running Girls Rock Camp that day and I like to tell them that Our music and our sound is going to fill the streets of Boston Then I went to soundcheck and our music literally filled the streets near Fenway So that felt pretty great Jen Trynin s return to music was a long time coming after the major-label experience left her feeling bruised and used up she even published a memoir about it Everything I m Cracked Up to Be She only started the Cujo because a friend bassist Matt Tahaney kept pestering her to be in a band And when they started writing songs together she was amazed at how much she enjoyed it especially since it turned out louder and more attitudinal than what she d done previously It s really the first time I ve written with anything else and particular of these songs just make me laugh Like our song I Don t Even Want You it sounds so much like s and s leather metal music that it s ridiculously wonderful That blatant kind of childishly overt sexuality I love that and I ve missed it Particular of the Cujo tracks were produced by her late husband Mike Denneen the well-respected producer and Q Division founder she was widowed in another reason she shied away from music I spent a limited years just hallucinating she says She does plan on making more music though in a more serious vein She s writing a second memoir about her widowhood with an accompanying set of songs And she will play a scant of her old local hits during the Cujo set this week What I literally want to do right now is to make up with music like it s an old friend I had such a rough relationship with music than I want to say I m sorry I ve been such a bad partner We all have things we have to live through But when you start feeling like you want to rock I think you owe it to other people to go out there and rock Mary Lou Lord has perpetually been fueled by her love of other peoples music so it happened that after years offstage mainly due to a shoulder injury she saw a latest gig by English artist Nick Saloman aka the Bevis Frond a longtime friend and collaborator I saw Evan Dando lately as well The fact that they re still out there playing as good if not better was inspirational to me It meant that you don t have to retire just because you re older So I went home and wrote a song a little pop song with specific of Nick s help The song itself is no big deal but it was a big deal that I wrote it The song presumably called On the Radio is partly about her friend Elliott Smith but it s not a sad farewell It s about hearing a million kids caroling his songs which is really heartwarming So the radio is kind of metaphorical but nobody wants to sing words like Youtube or Spotify Mary Lou Lord Photo courtesy artist